Guyla - A Glossary of Art Terminology

Vacuum Forming: A method of shaping plastic sheet over a solid relief pattern. The plastic is heated until it is pliable, and when a vacuum is created under the form, the plastic is drawn down onto the pattern like a skin.

Value: In painting, the degree of lightness or darkness in a color. The element of art that refers to the lightness or darkness of an object or color.

Value Scale: Gradation of tone or filling in areas through shadows.

Vanishing Point: In perspective drawing, a point or points on the horizon where receding parallel lines seem to meet.

Vanitas: The general term applied to a category of subject matter expressing the folly of vanity and the belief in the permanence of healthy existence, beauty, and the like. Vanitas themes include such things as beautiful young women confronting death in the form of a skeletal figure, figures meditating over skulls or skeletons, withering flowers, children blowing bubbles and so on.

Variegated: Marked with patches, spots, or streaks of different colors. In contrast to a surface having either one color or a regular pattern or texture, a variegated surface has a varied design of several colors and/or textures.

Variety: A principle of design that refers to a way of combining elements of art in involved ways to achieve intricate and complex relationships. Variety is often obtained through the use of diversity and change by artists who wish to increase the visual interest of their work. An artwork which makes use of many different hues, values, lines, textures, and shapes would reflect the artist's desire for variety.

Varnish: A protective transparent finish applied in a liquid state to a surface. One example is glair - a varnish for tempera paint. Varnish is also used as an ingredient in some mediums.

Vehicle: In the visual arts, usually the liquid, usually water or oil, that is mixed with pigments to make paints, dyes, and inks.

Vellum: A heavy, high-grade paper, natural or cream-colored or fine parchment, originally calf-skin, used traditionally for manuscripts. A paper surface that is finely textural. Vellum is also used to designate heavy weight, translucent drawing of drafting papers.

Venice Turpentine: A natural, oily resin obtained from the Australian larch or Canadian with the consistency of honey. When used with stand oil or sun-thickened linseed oil, it increases brushability and makes a tougher surface.

Verisimilitude: The degree to which something seems to be true; used of the putative accuracy of a representation.

Vernacular: A common popular or regional variation from international, academic, or other "accepted" standard usage in language.

Vernissage: A private showing, preview, or opening of an art exhibition - an event marking the start of an exhibition. This word was used with increasing frequency in the United States. Vernissage has its roots in the old practice of setting aside a day before an exhibition's opening for artists to varnish and put finishing touches to their paintings - a tradition that reportedly dates to at least 1809, when it was instituted by England's Royal Academy of Arts.

Verso: The second or back side of any work on paper. May also be the left-hand page of a book. The opposite of recto. The front and rear sides of other two-sided objects, such as coins, medals, or panels which have a painting on each side are more often referred to as obverse and reverse.

Viewer: A person who views; an onlooker or spectator. Sometimes used as a synonym for audience.

Vignette: an ornamental design or illustration used on a page of a book, magazine, or other publication as at the beginning or end of a chapter or section. A picture, photograph, film imagewith no definite border, shading off gradually at the edges.

Virtual: Existing not in actual fact or form, but in essence or effect in the mind, especially as a product of the imagination or of illusion.

Virtuosity: The seemingly effortless skill or style employed by a virtuoso, or master.

Viscosity: The relative resistence of a liquid to stirring or movement, and its stickiness.

Visual Art: A broad category that includes the traditional fine arts such as drawing, painting, printmaking, sculpture; communication and design arts such as film, television, graphics, product design; architecture and environmental arts such as urban, interior, and landscape design; folk arts; and works of art such as ceramics, fibers, jewelry, works in wood, paper, and other materials.

Visual Culture: The body of cultural artifacts which are experienced principally through vision, without the traditional academic separation between high and low culture.

Visual Weight: The interest or attraction that certain elements in an art work have upon the viewer.

Visualize: To see or form a mental picture of something.

Visual Qualities: The careful arrangement of the elements and principles of design in a work of art. This aesthetic quality is favored by formalism.

Vitrify: To change materials into glass or a glass-like substance through heat fusion. This is the action of a kiln heating ceramic clay and glazes, for instance. A curious example: lightning striking a metal rod partly buried in sand will cause all the sand within a certain distance from the rod to vitrify.

Void: Containing no matter, empty, negative space.

Volume: Refers to the space within a form.

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